The Constitution  Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister have any strategies, mechanisms or suggestions for this House to enable the constitutional concerns of the Bloc members to be addressed without allowing them to consume a disproportionate amount of the time and attention of this House?

The Constitution  Mr. Speaker, I have one further supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister envision some special role for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in this area? Is its focus going to be primarily on Canada-Quebec relations or on relations with all provincial governments?

Registered Retirement Savings Plan  Mr. Speaker, I wish to address an issue of great concern to millions and millions of Canadians who are sincerely worried about their financial well-being in their retirement years. It is no secret that previous governments have underestimated the financial reserves that will be available to retiring Canadians after the year 2000.

Throne Speech Debate  Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise an issue of concern to millions of Canadians regarding the activities in this House yesterday. Much to my disappointment the focus of the affairs of this place yesterday was on the constitutional future of Quebec. The three parties in this House each said during the recent election that the economy and getting Canada back to work would be the number one item on the agenda of this Parliament.

Agriculture  Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House find it disturbing to note the lack of specifics in the throne speech on a number of vital national issues. However, we did not expect the government to neglect so completely a subject of utmost importance to rural Canada, and that is agriculture.

Speech From The Throne  Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly on the speech by the hon. member of the Reform Party. In my opinion, he touched on two critical points. The first is the high cost of social assistance for the less fortunate and the poor in our society. The second is the concern over the cost of administering the government.

Speech From The Throne  Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member and going back to only changing the faces and not the system, I perhaps may not have explained myself very well. If all we do is change the faces and not the way we do business in this House, not the way we look at how we spend money, not the way we look at how we evaluate programs and not the way we decide what is in the best interests of Canadians then we will have accomplished nothing.

Speech From The Throne  However, the approach taken will be the critical factor. We are confident that the hon. member and his party, the Reform Party, will agree that spending must not be reduced at the expense of the least fortunate. A parliamentary committee should be convened to review each separate budgetary expenditure.

Speech From The Throne  Mr. Speaker, I would concur with the hon. member that balancing the budget is a priority. I would also concur that a review of the spending estimates, program by program and then line by line, is very important and one that would provide great benefit to this House.

Speech From The Throne  The House has elected a Speaker for the second time, but in this particular election there were extensive meetings between candidates and the political parties: the Bloc Quebecois, the Reform Party and as a special suggestion of the Prime Minister, with the Liberal Party. Perhaps no votes were changed, but I think there was a profound educational process. We are all better informed of the options of choice for the future development of parliamentary rules and procedures available to us.

Speech From The Throne  It is a fact that we, on this side of the House, will take a close look at your legislation. If you table good bills we will certainly support them, and the Reform Party members have also said they will: if it is good legislation, we will not purposely criticize it. On the contrary, we will support it. But you can be sure that people in my riding, who elected me to represent them in this House, want Canada to do better, regardless of the decision they will have to make in the next few years.

Speech From The Throne  Madam Speaker, in response to the hon. member's question, I think we have to recognize that this country was born and developed out of initiative. We very much recognize our social obligations to Canadians who are old, those who are sick and those in unfortunate circumstances who are unable to look after themselves.

Speech From The Throne  Madam Speaker, in response to the question of the hon. member for Kamloops, I mentioned in my speech that we have a feeble economy. Taxes are too high. This is why we find today that businesses are struggling to pay the taxes to keep the government afloat. Even then the government still needs another $40 billion or more to pay its bills.

Speech From The Throne  If the concern is to allow as many members to speak to this important debate as possible, we can always extend the hours for people to do that. My point was that the past speaker was a very important spokesperson for the Reform Party and an obvious person of whom to ask a number of questions.

Speech From The Throne  Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question and for his congratulations. I have known the hon. member for some time and it is a delight to be able to sit with him in this Chamber. Of course there was not time in my speech to address all of the concerns that the hon. member would like me to address.